A world track and field relay competition not only concerns the qualification of the relay team for the World Championships and the Tokyo Olympics, but also carries the gimmick of the Japanese team's "revenge battle". At the same time, in the live broadcast of Yokohama TV in Japan, the coaches of the Chinese and Japanese track and field teams will also comment on the game together.
After receiving this series of information, the audience on the Internet who were already concerned about this event had even greater expectations for the event that would begin the next day.
That night, the athletes who were about to face the second day of high-intensity competition began to prepare for rest early. Compared to some restless netizens on the Internet, these athletes actually got a good rest.
The next day, May 11, was also the first day of the long-awaited World Athletics Relays.
The schedule for May 11 will include preliminaries and finals for the mixed shuttle relay, as well as preliminaries for the men's and women's 4x100m, and preliminaries for the men's, women's and mixed 4x400m.
At the same time, the mixed 2x2x400m, which appeared for the first time in this relay competition, required one male and one female 400m runner to run 2 400m each during the whole race due to its special competition system.
If participating in this event, it is very likely that the best male and female 400m athletes from each team will be needed to compete, which will undoubtedly affect the competition for Olympic places in the three sub-events of the 4x400m relay. Therefore, very few teams have signed up for this event, and the final will go directly to May 11.
The first match of the day will officially start at 6:30 p.m. on the 11th. The national team members will replenish their energy around 3 p.m. and go to Yokohama Stadium to start preparing for that night's match.
Su Bai was different. While the relay team was heading to Yokohama Stadium, he was accompanied by an interpreter sent by the Japan Athletics Association and took a car to the live broadcast center of Yokohama TV Station.
When Su Bai and the accompanying translator arrived at the TV station, coach Arakawa Ryunosuke, who had invited Su Bai to "exchange" the day before, had also arrived at the scene.
This was the second time Su Bai and Arakawa met. Su Bai was still wearing the sports jacket sponsored by Hook for the national team, while Arakawa changed into an exquisite suit and seemed to attach great importance to tonight's live broadcast.
The two smiled at each other and greeted each other. Then, staff from Yokohama TV and the Japan Athletics Association arrived and immediately began to communicate with the two about the live broadcast process.
In China, all the news about the relay race the day before really made domestic netizens itchy. At this time, before the competition even started, many people on the Internet had already begun discussing the schedule of that night's race and the duel between Su Bai and Arakawa Ryunosuke.
In the Track and Field Kingdom Forum, someone had already listed the highlights of the evening.
Topic post: [8 events, 5 World Championships and Tokyo Olympic quotas, tonight! 】
Topic content: [It’s a pity that the live broadcast of Yokohama TV cannot be watched in China, and there is no Chinese translation. Otherwise, today’s match between Su Bai and Arakawa Ryunosuke off the court would have been a highlight that should not be missed. 】
3l: [The OP’s summary is good, but overall, the most important thing is to obtain the quota for the five Tokyo Olympic events. Whether it can be achieved depends on tonight. 】
5l: [Tonight's match is a rare one where the preliminaries are even more heart-wrenching than the finals. 】
On the Internet, audiences were nervously discussing the schedule that was about to begin, but at the Yokohama Stadium, the national relay team members who were about to face this major competition in person seemed much calmer in comparison.
Of course, this calmness does not come from excessive arrogance or relaxation due to a lack of clear understanding of the event. Every player present has done his best for the event that will begin tonight.
At this moment, in their calm state, they are eager for the next game.
At 5:30 in the evening, the ceiling lights of Yokohama Stadium were fully turned on, illuminating the huge stadium as bright as day. The audience who had been waiting outside the stadium for a long time officially began to enter at this moment.
The members of the track and field team are now making their own pre-match preparations in the warm-up area. The warm-up area is still some distance away from the official competition area, but all the athletes who are warming up can already hear the loud and uniform cheers coming from the direction of the stadium.
The Yokohama Stadium, which can accommodate 70,000 people, was already packed after all the spectators entered. Many spectators were holding Japanese flags, and some were wearing headbands and holding cheering horns.
At 6:00 p.m., Yokohama TV, inside the live studio
A host, an Athletics Association translator, Su Bai and Arakawa Ryunosuke, a total of four people sat in front of the live broadcast table in the live broadcast room. From the TV screen, the live broadcast table on the scene was similar to the anchor table during news broadcasts. The two live broadcast tables were placed in an "eight-shape", with the host and Arakawa on the left, and Su Bai and the translator on the right.
It was 6 o'clock and the scheduled live broadcast time had arrived. With the instructions of the on-site director, the live broadcast of the World Relay Race on Yokohama TV officially kicked off.
After the on-site host finished broadcasting the oral content as usual, he introduced Arakawa and Su Bai, who were on his left and right, to the audience. After the host's introduction, the two also greeted the audience in front of the TV.
As a country with a fanatical love for "running", the Yokohama TV station, which was responsible for broadcasting the World Athletics Relays that night, naturally received a lot of attention. Regardless of whether it was the audience who had already known about Arakawa's "revenge plan" the day before, or the audience who did not understand the cause and effect, they were all stunned when they heard the host's introduction of Su Bai.
【! This is really a big deal. Is the coach of the Chinese track and field team so young? 】
[I thought Coach Arakawa was already an amazing young talent, but this Chinese coach looks like he is only a college student, right? 】
[Wow, you’re only 24 years old? At this age, in Japan, when you enter a company, you have to prepare a picnic for your seniors during the cherry blossom season and even go to the cherry blossom park a day in advance, right? Has he actually become a national basic coach? 】
[…Wow, this is incredible. The Chinese team he led also caused the Japanese team to suffer consecutive defeats. Is it true that such a genius really exists in this world? 】
As the live broadcast started on Yokohama TV, public social platforms such as Japan's Twitter and chat apps such as Line were suddenly filled with topics related to the track and field relay race and Su Bai.
In the TV station's live broadcast room, although it was Su Bai's first time participating in a live TV broadcast, he generally accepted it well. With the help of the translator, Su Bai only needed to simply answer the questions raised by the host.
The host, Hong Shi, had just finished introducing tonight's 'off-court showdown' between Arakawa and Su Bai to the audience in front of the TV. For tonight's 8 games, Arakawa and Su Bai need to each write down their predictions for the qualifying teams for that game. During the interval between each game, the accuracy of Arakawa and Su Bai's predictions will be judged.
At this time, the time has gradually turned to 6:20, and the preliminaries of the first mixed shuttle obstacle relay are about to begin.
In the on-site athlete tunnel of Yokohama Stadium, the mixed obstacle relay teams have already taken to the field.
The Chinese women's 4x400m relay team, led by Chen Yada, was in the warm-up area behind the corridor, preparing to start their final warm-up adjustments in preparation for their appearance in this event after the mixed obstacle relay.
After the Asian Championships, Su Bai made slight adjustments to the training direction of the women's team members, but he also stated in advance that these adjustments were fine-tuning based on their long-term training direction. In this World Athletics Relays, including Su Bai and coaches such as Pei Jinan and Zheng Xingguo, did not put too much pressure on the women's team.
However, the lack of pressure is actually the biggest pressure for the girls on the women's team.
Originally, during the Asian Championships, although the girls on the women's team were not very satisfied with their results at the time, they still felt happy about winning the bronze medal after the game.
But when it came to this World Athletics Relay Championships, the girls did not get the task from Su Bai to enter the finals. Su Bai's requirement for them was to enter the finals of Group B and get the top three in Group B.
This request made the girls on the track and field team stunned for a moment, and then they understood what Su Bai meant.
——Su Bai didn’t think that they could qualify for the Tokyo Olympics in this competition.
The so-called Group B finals are for the 9th to 16th place teams in the preliminary stage. Teams in this group will also participate in the finals, but the results of the finals will only be recorded as rankings and they will not participate in the final medal competition.
Chen Yada still remembers that she subconsciously stood up and wanted to ask Su Bai to change the task, but she rarely saw serious disapproval on Su Bai's face.
She still remembered the conversation between her and Su Bai at that time.
"Do you remember how low the American women's team can run?"
"...Within 3 minutes and 23 seconds."
"Poland, Britain, Jamaica, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Canada... What is the average score of these teams in the competition?"
“…3 minutes and 28 seconds.”
"So, what is the current PB of our team?"
When Chen Yada heard the question asked by Su Bai, she did not answer at that moment.
She suddenly realized that since Su Bai took charge of the national team's 400-meter event, they have become accustomed to making progress and achieving results and achievements that surpass their previous ones in competitions.
In fact, they were not satisfied with the results of the Asian Championships. They felt that the results of the Asian Championships were not their limit and they could run better.
They understand that the individual strengths of the team members are not balanced enough. They understand that in terms of personal strength, they are still far from the world's top level.
But... why do they subconsciously think that under Su Bai's leadership, they can naturally challenge for the qualification to enter the Tokyo Olympics?
Their current team PB result is 3 minutes 33.88 seconds, which is at least 5 seconds behind the teams listed by Su Bai above.
This means that the players of these teams can leave them behind by more than 1 second per lap on average.
Facing opponents with such a huge gap in strength, they were thinking of defeating them with extraordinary performance and outbursts...
It was at that moment that Chen Yada and the others realized that they had always thought that they were still working hard and keeping their feet on the ground, but in fact, their hearts had already drifted away.
This is not the right mindset to work hard and be down-to-earth.
It was also under Su Bai's heavy blow that the players of the women's team, led by Chen Yada, readjusted their state and set their goals in the training for more than half a month - all they have to do now is to perform as well as possible.
No matter which country their opponents are from, what they have to do in the game is to do their best first!
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